Beyond The Lost

1

"What're you crying for?"

Heavy arms scoop me against my father's chest, my short, bruised legs against the concrete as his hands slide over my back. My breath quickens, a familiar smell filling my nose as I kick and scream in return of his affection.

I can feel him hold me tighter, my kicks growing harder and more violent. "Let me go!"

"Please, stop it." He whispers in my ear, but my tears won't stop. I slip from his grasp and run into the kitchen, hiding in one of the lower cabinets and covering my eyes. My nails scratch my eyebrows but the stinging pain is hidden beneath my bloody knees. "Eve?" My father sits outside the cabinet, knocking gently on it. "I have bandaids. They'll make it hurt less."

I could never discover why but I was terrified of seeing my own blood as a child. The smell and feeling of it running down my skin was so disgusting. It felt like my life was disappearing with every scratch.

"I'll handle it." A voice that made my heart stop cut through the wooden cabinet door. I swallowed, quickly covering my mouth with one hand and holding the cabinet shut with my other.

My mother easily flung it open and dragged me out into the kitchen by my ankles. My father immediately grabbed me from her and held me in his lap, wrapping his arms and legs around me so tightly that I couldn't move. I could feel a strange sense of protection radiating from my back as he loomed over my head, shielding me with his entire body. "It doesn't need to be handled. Don't touch her."

"Give me my child." My mother's piercing eyes couldn't break the barrier around me.

"Our daughter." He corrected her, gently combing my hair with his fingers. "Let's clean your knees and out some bandaids on there." He held onto me so lovingly, his comforting voice in my ears. I remember it so vividly.

Now I stand across from my father in prison, his soft smile behind bars. "How much longer?"

"A few more years, that's all." He chuckles as if that's no time at all. For me, it's a century away from the only protection I'd ever known.